Ratings: Utopia Ticks Up, New Girl and Mindy Project Premieres Down

Fox’s New Girl and The Mindy Project on Tuesday returned down sharply from their previous premieres, leading as they now are out of weaker, non-sitcom programming.

Utopia opened the night with 2.4 million total viewers and a 1.0 rating (per finals) — up a tenth in the demo week-to-week and improving slightly on Glee‘s most recent Tuesdays-at-8 numbers, but a far cry from the 6 mil/2.4 that Dads/Brooklyn Nine-Nine averaged here a year ago.

Come 9 pm, New Girl — which TVLine readers gave an average grade of “B” — did 3.0 mil and a 1.7, down 44 and 41 percent from its previous premiere yet up sharply from its May finale (2.4 mil/1.2), which led out of Glee.

Similarly, Mindy (2.7 mil/1.3, average grade of “A”) was down a good 26 percent from its previous premiere but on par with its May finale (2.5 mil/1.3).

Lol. As if ratings represent if a show is good or not. New Girl is one of the worst comedies on network television right now. The Mindy Project has been doing much better; the second season was quite strong and Chris Messina deserved at the very least, an Emmy nomination. Mindy Kaling did too, for her writing. The best comedy right now is Orange is the New Black, on Netflix.

Give it a rest, Scarlett. Being a troll doesn’t become such a pretty name. Mindy’s a great show, one you don’t watch. And by the way “on par”to TVLine actually means a .2 increase in the demo if you look at the math. Stupid Fox putting Utopia in front of 2 shows that needed a stronger lead in. I hope they’ve got something waiting in the wings to go in there. Why throw away two other shows’s future behind something lousy? It trended worldwide for hours last night, the show, Danny’s name, his *ehem* nickname, Chris Messina, all kinds of stuff related to the show. Worldwide, both coasts, hours. So go ahead and hate, but it’s got the kind of online presence and the viewers have the level of education and affluence that advertisers like. They don’t need as many of us, but the show’s buzz is increasing so viewership is bound to follow. Help yourself to a gif of Chris Messina’s latest dancing spree which should support that increase because dayum. When your heart palpitations ease up, come back and tell us if you’ve had a Grinch moment and decided to help carve the roast beast.

Last year New Girl had Dads and Brooklyn Nine Nine which both pulled a 2.2 and a 2.6 respectfully as a lead in. Now it has Utopia which as you can see has a 1.0 to its name. Put a show that no one watches infront a modest performing series at premiere and you’ll take a hit, as evident here.

tbh i find it actually impressive that mindy has these numbers, since fox does absolutely NOTHING to promote the show. which is sad, because it’s super amazing and deserves everything good in the world. i’m happy it’s stable tho. also, it trended worldwide last night, which was pretty amazing :)

I completely agree about Fox not promoting the show. I feel like most of the promotion happens from Mindy Kaling and the rest of the cast and then a strong fan push for promotion, outside of that I see hardly anything. I mean, even the official twitter account hardly tweets anything out of substance.

Good to see Mindy stable from it’s s2 finale. I think most programmes would love the come back stable as there’s more chance of dropping than there is of climbing for the start of a new season these days. I’m in the UK and we’re still on season 2 but I’d already absolutely love it for Mindy to get to a fourth season. It’s my favourite current comedy by far.
Plus as we know the overnights aren’t the most important thing these days. Pretty sure I’ve read recently that the TV execs are now paying more attention to the L+3 ratings than the overnights

It won’t be as simple as that though. It all depends on how the new comedies do and how they do in L+3. It’s unlikely Fox would axe every comedy that airs this year so if both old and new shows get similar levels then I’d say they’re more likely to stick with Mindy and New Girl because they’ve got more episodes already.
Also I don’t think much can be read into this week given the low lead in from Utopia and the fact they’ve come back earlier than most shows. People have already said they didn’t know New Girl was back last night and that could be because they’ve started a week or two before anything else seems to be back. The next few weeks will tell us more than last night’s numbers

Actually the ‘People didn’t know it was on’ excuse isn’t really valid here. Regular viewers aren’t tracked by Nielsen, and those that are selected by Nielsen(Around 20,000 households) will know enough about TV to follow their chosen shows.

Also given the past trend of both shows, both will lose viewers in the coming weeks and come Spring, one or either show will be below a 1 18-49 and canceled come May. These are alarming numbers for both shows and unless Fox changes things up a bit(They can start by pulling Utopia from this slot) both shows are a sure thing for cancelation.

Unless the numbers drop dramatically I don’t see them cancelling New Girl. New Girl is close to reaching the 100 episode marker after this season and Fox owns it. Mindy Project on the other hand is distributed by NBC so I doubt it sticks around.

By the end of Season 4 New Girl will have passed the 88 episodes required for syndication. If it follows the same pattern as last season and with the increased competition it could easily fall below a 1 18-49 by Spring.

@Katie T

The main problem is that both shows will be up against decent competition and given last years drops from premiere, they’re going to be in serious danger of cancelation in the coming months if Fox doesn’t change things up.

Of course it’s valid to some degree to say people may not have known. I doubt Nielsen viewers are any less likely to not know or forget that something is on than a normal viewer without a box. Especially when it comes to shows that have had little promotion compared to others. They aren’t any different to a regular viewer really.
Yes there’s a chance both shows may decline but it’s unlikely either will absolutely tank suddenly like say Glee did last season. And as I’ve also said, it’s all down to the L+3 ratings, not the overnights these days. The TV execs have come out and said that themselves this summer. So getting a 0. in overnights isn’t as bad as it used to be if the show is picking up a good number in L+3.
That said, if it does come down to one or the other then I think Mindy probably will be the favourite. It’s rare that anything gets cancelled after s3 when s4 gives most series a better chance of syndication. If the numbers aren’t as great as they’d want them to be they could easily hold it to mid season just to get more episodes to sell

I also think a large part of it is that these were, for the most part, the first new Fall premieres. Sometimes people don’t realize the new Fall season is starting at first, especially when they might normally see commercials had they been watching previously.